Or, he simply agrees. I really don't know what you're going for here. Why exactly can't he agree with Buffet? You seem to disagree with him. Does that mean you're just a tool attempting to turn people like me against that idea? What's up with the "people like you" thing anyway? Guess what, you don't impress me much, so don't think you're somehow here to enlighten me. At best you're a passing distraction.
He can agree all he wants. The problem isn't his opinion or agreement as much as it is his plagiarism and pretending that it's his own words. People don't do that without an attempt of deception which is what I was pointing out. If he would have said something about agreeing with X or he believe like X then made the statement, there deception wouldn't have been there. So tell me, if you go to 3 different car lots looking for a used car and all the salesmen tell you the cars were owned by little old ladies from Pasadena who only drove them on Sunday, would you start to think something was up or be the sucker who didn't notice the problem? Do you get sold a bad bill of good often?
You haven't demonstrated that the AC is trying to fool anyone. You seem to think he is, but that's not the same thing as it actually being true.
I'm sorry if you can't get that concept. I don't have to prove anything to be suspect of something. The next time someone calls you up and the caller ID says it's anonymous or out of area, why don't you go ahead and apply for that credit card over the phone or help that guy at customs process your packages. I mean EVERY ANONYMOUS COWARD who parrots someone else' statement is going to be legit right.
You really don't understand the concept. People who say this aren't saying that they volunteer to pay some arbitrary amount over their taxes just for the hell of it. They're saying that they can afford an increase, and that rather than whining about it they'll go along with that increase. Are you being deliberately dense on this point, or do you just not understand?
The dense part is that you refuse to understand that these people are not advocating their taxes go up, they are advocating that your taxes go up. As I mentioned before, the others who has embraced that line, members of the current government, the person who originated the statement, all have either cheated on their taxes or taken steps to avoid paying anything more then they absolutely have to. If they think they could and should pay more, then why is Buffet receiving his income as investment profits to limit his tax liabilities instead of taking it as regular income so it would be subject to the full tax rate plus social security taxes and various employer taxes. If they think they should pay more, then half the administration should have never cheated on their taxes, Kennedy and Charlie Reingold should have reported all their taxable income too.
You don't find it just a bit suspect that about everyone who says we need to pay more in taxes in the same ways the AC did, has either legally or illegally taken specific steps to avoid just that? You don't find it just a bit suspect that those same people were made aware of what they already knew in that they could pay extra at any time and refused to do so but they claim it's their "moral duty" to pay more. It's complete fucking hogwash.
Okay, so you have sources, you just don't understand them. The first link says this about his taxes: "Mr Buffett will only pay taxes if he sells his equity (again, the fact that his charitable actions have helped him avoid taxes altogether is besides the point)". Why is this bad? Until he sells his equity, that value is not money. He can't go to BestBuy and spend his equity. Once he sells it, he'll owe taxes on it, but until that happens, it's potential money, not actual money. As for the chari
Wait... what? Did I fall through a tear in the time-space continuum?
It sounds like it. Glad your back though.
Warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, indefinite imprisonment and torture, political intervention in private medical decisions
None of that has been adjudicated illegal without the party in question standing on the belief they were legal and able to do what they did. Some of it is little more then speculation as to the legality as it stands anyways.
And yes, the belief of being in the right does matter even though it wasn't the case or reality as the situation plays out. This is exactly what I am talking about too. Most democrats profoundly expel how evil those violations are but when a chief law enforcement officer in the land goes into a court of law and lies through his teeth, it's not about the crime, it's about the "blowjob" the crime was concerning. Even after Judge Wright ruled that Clinton lied, assess fines and penalties to him which was later used as the basis of one of the complaints that got Clinton's law license revoked, the democrats say oh, it was nothing, just a "blow job". But when someone else like a republican thinks they are in the right (*as clinton might have actually thought) and is proven wrong by law, hell and heaven just merged and it's the Apocalypse.
targeted DOJ prosecutions designed to subvert elections, exposure of covert operatives, evasion of corporate taxes.
The exposure of the "covert operative" was actually done by a long time democrat Richard Armatage, Scooter Libbey wasn't prosecuted for that, he was prosecuted for saying he spoke with people out of order and not remembering speaking to someone who claimed he did. But all that was after the fact of Armatage and Robert Novak kept his name secrete throughout the investigation in order to keep the investigation going at the wishes of Armatage.
I also find it interesting that you bring up the evasion of Corporate income taxes when all it does is prove my point. Why is it your complaining about someone not paying their taxes when half of Obama's cabinet and several key leading democrats have failed to pay them properly? The guy in charge of the US treasury right now couldn't even get his taxes correct and knew there was a problem but figured it would go away if he waited long enough.
But this is all sort of pointless because what I was trying to get across was that the republicans seem to want to enforce the laws on the books and the democrats want to use the hardships created when someone breaks the laws as a vehicle to push more laws onto the public in knee jerk reactions.
That's a short list, just off the top of my head, of activities fully endorsed by the GOP that directly contravened the rule of law. I think if we could find more Republicans who were genuinely willing to support the rule of law, we might be able to winnow some of the more blatantly-corrupt politicians all along the political spectrum.
You short list was flawed but again you missing the big picture. No of them looked at their actions and said this is against the law. Even the NSA wiretaps were initially thought to of been within the law. Then it was believed that because of other duties and obligations of the office, the law couldn't apply in that particular case. Of course that's not uncommon to happen and is still within the rule of law because an unconstitutional law or an unconstitutionally applied law is not within the rule of law.
Some dumbass spewing hateful cliches doesn't seem to be getting the job done.
I can understand that you can't see reality with your head in the sand. All that I ask is that now once it out, you actually pay attention.
I didn't try to pin it on Obama. However, I'm sort of concerned that you went directly to Obama when I said more government control was change that was going to happen anyways.
I wouldn't agree that it is childish. It's the way our society was created and is the halmark of freedom and liberty. You see, we operate under the assumption of we can until something with authority says we can't. Now morals, like this impressed by religions, fraternity groups (eagles, elks, boy scouts) civil societies (bar associations, trade groups/unions) and so on are all relative instead of absolute now.
It used to be a system of absolute morality in which it was a given of what was expected and how we treated each other as well as expected to be treated. but in out enlighten society, it's all about relative morality now. This took us from a solid how will my actions effect others to a how will my actions effect me. With that shift has come a shift the stuff that you seem to think makes us childish now.
I would try education before legislation too but without a shift back to absolute morality to some degree, it will be more or less an exercise in futility.
That's probably the worst part of the democrats. They vilify the republicans for wanting to enforce the rule of law unless it's something they can use to their own political advantage yet they always ignore existing laws and attempt to put massively draconian new laws in place because of the lack of enforcement of previous laws as some knee jerk reaction just to appear to be doing something.
That makes no sense. In this case, the "messenger" was the AC. Unless you can prove that the AC is either of the people you mentioned, their comments are irrelevant.
It makes complete sense. You have someone who is parroting something someone else said in an effort to spread propaganda and gain support for something that they felt otherwise wouldn't have it. It would be different if the AC used his own words, but he didn't, he use the words of someone else changed slightly. The messenger was a tool attempting to turn people like you. Pointing that out is completely valid.
You don't need to believe everything I say, but you at least should have the knowledge about what was said. What I mean by that is, if I say X and X is a strawman or a bastardization of something else in an attempt to fool you, then you knowledge of that helps you decide whether or not my statement can persuade you to my line of thinking. It doesn't matter who tells you what's up, what's important is that you know of it.
What the hell does this have to do with the conversation at hand? You seem to be going for a "rich people all suck" thing, and if that's it, this conversation is pointless because it's not hard to find specific examples of bad behaviour. That still does not invalidate the idea that there are people who have high incomes and support paying higher tax rates.
It means that everyone else who has parroted those same words or some close incarnation to them has been a hypocrite in practice. Most of them have been so hypocritical that they have been caught cheating on their taxes. So to say "I can pay more and think I should pay more" but when presented with the opportunity, you you do the exact opposite, shows that your not sincere about your position or the statement in question. I'm sorry that you can't see that. I'm also sorry that you couldn't see my sarcasm was being hypocritical in the example of using more fossil fuels then anyone else while telling everyone else they need to cut back. It's the Do as I say, not as I do syndrome which is completely wrong.
Cite specifics or don't waste my time. I'm not here to research your arguments for you.
Lol.. Are you that out of touch with reality? I mean this is common knowledge but if you really do need a picture drawn or someone else to do the google finger for you, I guess I can. Warren Buffets financial structure is so public knowledge that investment strategies of just doing what he does has been created and Buffet has actually allowed access to his transactions to let this happen. He actually publicly admitted to this in his famous statement "I pay less taxes them my secretary" where he went on to show how he protects or shelters income from taxes "legally" and eventually to the same statement the AC posted.
Of course the article I mentioned seems to use some faulty math because a reduction in one area doesn't mean an increase in another. But hey, when you point exists in a false dichotomy I guess everything is fair game.
Again, just because *some* people abuse the system does not mean *everyone* does. I know plenty of people who have high six and even seven figure incomes and they do not have dummy holding companies.
Lol.. Those "some people" are the people I was talking about who have made that same statement. Fuck dude, you act as if I'm saying some people don't like apples so no one likes apples. No, that's not even close to what is being said. I said that the AC parroted X which was said by several Y people and those Y people did Z instead of X with Z being the exact opposite of X. Warren Buffet when asked why he didn't just donate money to
While that is technically true, it isn't necessarily true.
In the US, the treaties made under the authority of the constitution are part of the supreme law of the land. Article III of the constitution also gives US courts constitutional authority over any treaty regardless of arbitration clauses providing someone can show cause to bring a suit under the treaty. Now it should be noted that you can't create a treaty that is unconstitutional (even though some people want to claim you can) because congress and the president is bound to the authority and limits of the US constitution. All laws, treaties, government actions are required to be made in pursuant to the constitution not only because it says so, but because it's the defining authority allowing them to be made. Otherwise it would be no different then you or I declaring a law or treaty in place, we could do that but it would have no authority.
Anyways, at least in the US, the US supreme court retains judicial powers over all treaties by right of constitutional provisions. Getting them to use that power may end up an exercise in futility but they do have the power of jurisprudence over it by the same authority that allows the US to make treaties in the first place. It would take a constitutional amendment to remove that power.
As a side note, did you know that there can actually be "unconstitutional" constitutional amendments? Interestingly enough, the amendment process is limited from two provision happening, the first being an amendment effecting first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article before 1808 and the second which is still in force, being that no state can be deprived of equal amounts of senators in the senate without it's consent. Don't know why I added that other then I thought it was interesting when it popped into my head after looking at article III again to verify my statement.
Well, actually it will have came into contact with Canadian customs. All shipments in Canada and the US need a bill of lading and all shipments leaving the country need a copy of that BoL files or declared with an export agent representing customs. You are correct in that an agent doesn't actually look into the shipping container or truck but they do look at the BoL before it leaves the country.
Now what's going to be a problem is whether or not the BoL accurately reflects the contents of the shipping containers or truck in which it is being hauled in. If it does, then it will be obvious to find on either side of the border. If it doesn't then two things have transpired that makes it Canada's problem. First, they are allowing the shipment of undeclared and/or improperly classified materials into the US which is a violation of not only the NAFTA treaty but GATT provisions and some that were replace by the WTO as well as well as various Canadian and US laws. You also have some issues with the berne convention and the copyright protections in the Geneva convention which Canada signed but didn't implement in 1971, the Rome Convention in which Canada has in force since 1998, the WTC and WPPT which Canada signed but didn't implement in 1997 when it comes to copyrights.
Keep in mind, I separated the copyrights in particular and stated which they were bound by (in force) in order to show why pressure is being placed to implement laws to these effect. The DMCA was taken almost word for word from the WTC and WPPT articles minus the penalties and a few quirks in implementation. Those two treaties is also the reason why not only are other countries attempting to implement those laws, but why the US has been able to enforce it's DMCA laws in Australia and other places. There are provisions that allow for that if the member country doesn't have a particular law covering an item in the treaty. Although that gets really complicated to enforce.
Personally, I think this outburst is more along the lines of ammunition to get rid of NAFTA and implement something more restrictive and beneficial with the US. Recently Canada has blasted the US claiming that the "buy American" campaigns operated by governments(government contracts) and unions or trade groups violate NAFTA protocol and is essentially protectionism. Expect some more crap like this then someone claiming that NAFTA was the reason for the mortgage meltdown and recession we are in and then expect the "free" in North American Free Trade Agreement to disappear.
That's an interesting concept considering that Europe is more reliant on international trade then any other area in the world. Something else that's interesting is that the quality of life for many china citizens has enormously increased ever since the US and EU started importing goods and investing in manufacturing there. The same can be said in India too.
Oh, I'm sorry. I get it now, you weren't actually serious about anything you said, you were just looking for mod points and mad props by blaming and bashing the US for everything. Oh well, ignore my post and continue.
When a countries wants to participate in trade, especially when that trade is the manufacturing, importation, or selling of goods within another country, then sometimes there are rules and restrictions to that trade. These rules and restrictions are generally outlines in multinational or unilateral treaties that both countries are participants to. Anyways, the berne convention in which Canada is party to states that each member country has an obligation to honor the copyright of authors in other countries as well as make reasonable legislation (while providing for fair use) to ensure that happens.
NAFTA on the other hand, also has provisions involved in which each country is bound to deter the importation of anything banned or restricted by law into one of the member countries. This places more of an obligation on Canada itself for the inspection and removal of Pirated copies of copyright protected materials. This also gets sort of complicated because there are quite a few limitations to this rule. An example of this might be the transportation through the US of something illegal in the US but legal in Mexico or perhaps even illegal in Mexico but legal to ship out of Mexico.
I'm suspecting that the US is attempting to make claims that would present a reason for bailing on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and to negotiate something more favorable to the US. This was suggested by both primary candidates of the party who took power during the last election cycle. I can imagine that they are priming the situation to use the down economy to threaten Canada with bans on imports and passage through America to Mexico per NAFTA which would harm their economy- under the guise of things like this in order to get rid of the "free" in the trade and implement something that the US benefits from more. I would expect to start seeing more things like this.
Anyways, its not really a "not my problem" situation for Canada. How much of their problem it might actually be could probably be debated but they need to at least appear as if they are doing something even if not successful in order to satisfy some trade treaties.
Copyright laws in the US as of the mid 1800's have all been a result of international treaties. We have changed no copyright laws after the mid 1800's without signing onto a treaty first.
Now don't get me wrong, the same powerful corporations could be behind those international treaties but the changes that most people bitch about today stem from compliance with the Berne Convention, the Uragay round table agreements, the WTC and WPPT. While Cannada isn't a signitory to the WTC or WPPT WIPO treaties, Europe and many other countries are which is why you see a lot of other countries attempting to implement DMCA style laws only to be repeatedly shot down by their populous. The DMCA was more or less taken directly from the WTC and WPPT treaties minus the penalties.
Anyways, it's way more complex then your overly simple observation would allow and if you ever expect anything to be done about them, you will have to understand the fundamental behind the motivation more then claiming "X is evil" so that efforts can be directed into productive areas capable of providing satisfactory results. The reason you have the belief that the powerful corporations created the laws and that there is nothing that can be done is because the wrong villain has been blamed.
First of all, I don't think "contrived" means what you think it means. Saying that rich people should pay more taxes than poor people is a valid opinion, just one you don't seem to agree with.
It means exactly what I think it means. The statement was a manipulated fallacy created for the sole purpose to push an agenda or ideal that otherwise would have been non-existent to the poster.
Next, why bother bringing up a couple of people who claimed to believe similarly to the AC but didn't? Would you say murder is okay because until they got caught the Boston Strangler and John Wayne Gacy said murder was wrong? The philosophy isn't tainted just because someone tried to use it as camouflage for their activities.
The reason they were brought up was to show the intent of the messenger. And yes, to put it too your analogy with the murderers, it would mean suspect the messenger so if John Wayne Gacy did say murder was wrong, we could correctly suspect him of being a murderer.
That's just silly. You can support higher taxes without taking it upon yourself to simply pay more than is required. One person paying a few thousand extra is not going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. It just doesn't scale that way. The AC would be an idiot to simply pay more while nobody else does. As far as the AC "imposing" his view on others, he's not. He's sharing his view. If enough people agree with that view, it gets adopted as a general rule for everyone. This is part of living in a society. If that system doesn't work for you, I would suggest you may like Somalia. They don't have one of those evil government things there, they all get to do whatever they like. Personally, I don't think that sounds all that great, but that's just me.
Yea, and me driving my SUV around from airport to airport and jetting around the country or world while I leave all the light on at my mansion so it draws more electricity then all my neighbors combined to say "you have to curb your carbon emissions to save the world" is not just a bit hypocritical.
The fucks don't practice what they preach and you don't find that Odd or disingenuous? The poster said he could pay more as the reason why others like him should pay more. If he isn't going to lead by example then it's pointless to take him seriously. Perhaps you can be fooled by smooth talk, but I will always look a gift horse in the mouth just to make sure there aren't any Trojans hiding.
Citation needed. Good luck being able to prove "everyone", or even "most" do this. Some do, some don't.
lol.. So you took a generalization and think it will disprove everything else. Well, here is the proof, look at Warren Buffet who originated the statement the AC bastardized. He doesn't pay anything extra plus he structures his income to eliminate a good portion of his tax obligation. Oh, there is Ted Kennedy and a host of politicians who believe the same. I also find it interesting that the politicians in the party claiming to be helping the poor the most seem to have the least charitable contributions. Well, on the national and presidential levels anyways.
What's wrong with legitimate deductions? They exist for a reason. Again, you can support a higher tax rate while taking deductions without a conflict. Abuse of deductions are an entirely different story, but since you have no proof that the AC has done this, it's irrelevant. By the way, someone with a very high income can take quite a few deductions and still pay more in taxes than the average person makes in a year. This isn't an either-or issue.
Do you think I'm an idiot because you want to act like one? We aren't talking about taking the child tax credit here. We are talking about creating trusts and holding companies to funnel money through in order to manipulate tax obligat
I'm not missing anything and poor people are not paying proportionally more taxes. In fact, most of the poor and people just above poor receive more tax money back then they paid in to the system in the first place. At least as far as federal income tax is concerned.
As for the choice, the problem is that the people wanting to take the choice away are the ones who on their own merit refuse to pay extra. It's about liberty not morality. This country was founded on the principles of liberty not some fucked up version of morality that allows the selfish to dictate the expenses of others while they themselves attempt to avoid those costs. It seems that you missed the point.
Here is the problem with your contrived statement. And yes, It's almost identical to one made by Warren Buffet a few years back and parroted by a couple of people who are now known to be tax cheats (as if raising the taxes would effect someone cheating and not paying).
Anyways, here is the problem. You keep using the word I. In everything you say, it's all about you. So why are you trying to impose this idea of yours into others? If you don't pay enough taxes and that's your honest believe (Mr. Kennedy who failed to report stock transactions that he actually reported to the senate ethics comity and Reinold who failed to report rental income for more then 10 years and both have parroted the same statement to some extent) there is a process where you can donate more then what your allowed. In fact, everyone who claimed they can or should pay more taxes fail to pay more then they have to and most of them have structured their income to the point that most of their tax obligation is negated or they just cheat and don't report the income.
So why is that, you and many others want to tag onto this line about needing to pay more but when the ability is and always has been there, you fail to do so. And when you and others do your taxes, why is it that you always attempt to take as many deductions as possible? Your entire statement was about how you feel, and how you do whatever but it's nothing more then lip service. You posted AC so no one who knows you will chime in with the truth of you making 35k a year with a wife and 2 kids and don't even pay a 10% effective tax rate.
First, they don't pay Zero taxes. They are missing paying taxes on profits made in foreign countries. All their US born profits are taxed like normal.
The next item of importance is that they employ many people who pay taxes plus you have property taxes, permits for operations, and "other" taxes on state and local levels that are raised because of their presence here.
Finally, It's already against the law to hide revenue by moving it off shore for the purpose of avoiding tax liabilities. What this means is that all US generated monies will be taxed before it's allowed to leave the country. The major difference is going to be all the jobs lost. Suppose a company makes a 10 million a year profit in their US division and in order to do that, they pay salaries to 1000 people totaling plus bonuses, health care and so on. Lets assume those 1000 people earn an average salary of $80,000 a year. That's roughly $80,000,000 (80 mill) a year in total salaries that will likely have an effective tax at around 15-20% on the federal income tax alone (not including SS or employers portions of employment taxes). But those 1000 people will also be paying property taxes, purchasing things that keep other businesses open, and so on and so on.
So on the surface, you would be losing the federal income tax on the 10 million US profits plus the income taxes on the 80 mill total for employee salaries, then figure the SS taxes, gas taxes for transportation, local taxes and fees and so on. Plus, those 1000 people would now be unemployed or displace other workers to create almost the same scenario that would end up costing the government money for support services. It won't be a pretty picture and it looks better as it is..
n the US we pay the most per capita for medical services and have the lowest percentage of population with medical coverage of any industrial nation.
Apples and Oranges. That's not neccesarily true when all the realities are taken into consideration. In the US, elective cosmetic surgery is added to the per capital spending where in comparison, other countries aren't unless it's specifically covered by the national health plan. Add to that the lower quality of treatments and the refusal of treatment like the elderly get in England and Europe, and you will see the spending is very similar.
In the US, you get to pay an insurance company for the privilege of being thrown down a hole hoping to increase the profits for said company by your eventual death instead of providing the care needed to save your life or stabilize your quality of life so you can get back to normal.
If that your choice, then it is _YOUR_CHOICE. It isn't the government's choice or your neighbors choice and the only time the choices over your own health should be taken from you is when an emergency exists and you aren't able to communicate or comprehend those choices. And no, Not all insurance is like that, not even remotely all. However, I do see your need to vilify insurance companies blindly in order to support your position.
In the US, the bureaucrat sitting 2000 miles away claiming your taken care of when you're not is called an "insurance agent".
And the difference here is that you can drop that insurance agent and get another at will or any time. Liberty is about you having the power to control your own destiny and you deciding your own situation. The very thought of forcing me to pay for government health and taking my choices away or even my option to make those choices goes against the very grain this country was founded on. You can pick and chose which insurance agent you want or what policies you want to purchase. You can't do that with a politician in charge looking for contributions and you cannot make changes to your coverage without convincing millions of other people to do the same. Why you seem to think that giving up your freedom and choices is a good thing, I will never know. But I think I can comfortably assume your leaning towards the idea of someone else paying for your medical coverage so you can buy another big screen TV or something. Well, think about it, you will be taxed more and not be able to buy new shiny things and you will not have the ability to decide what type of coverage you want/need nor will you be able to skimp on certain things to afford others.
And no, private health insurance is not affordable to the vast majority of US residents who are not currently covered. These are not people blowing their money on new cars and big screen TVs, these are people who are already having a hard time paying for necessities even though they may be working full time or more. Furthermore, the need for employers to subsidize health care is a significant drag on US companies' ability to compete globally.
Actually, private health insurance is affordable to the vast majority of people. There is a small group of people who aren't already eligible or covered by government health and cannot legitimately afford health insurance. The majority of people claiming not to be able to afford it cannot do so because of life style choices.
BTW, there is no need for employers to subsidize health coverage. That's something they do to attract certain employees and to help keep them productive. If they weren't paying for the employer portion of insurance policies, they would be paying more in taxes to cover government health and more in wages to still attract those same types of people. The only drag you are seeing is a fictional one made up entirely to support a non-existent point.
Our foreign policy in the area has really been fatally flawed since the inception of our country. I'm not sure there could be anything different that could be done to change that at this point in time. I mean Thomas Jefferson (our third president) created a Standing Navy and the US Marine forces specifically to deal with the Middle east (Tripoli- then capitol of the ottoman empire) because they were sending pirate ships along the US Atlantic coast and started capturing Private citizens and selling them as slaves. Jefferson asked the ambassador to Tripoli while he was the ambassador to France where they got the right to attack our ships and kidnap our people to sell into slavery and his reply was Allah gave them the right. (of course that was no different then using a god to justify anything else done which was common for the time)
Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, and quite a few other territorial countries in the area (ottoman empire still) was/were major trade ports for the US and a natural extension of the Asian trade routes coming from China and India to the US. The Tea that we (our founding fathers) dumped into the Boston Harbor traveled by caravan to be loaded on a British flagged ship at the port of Kuwait. We have a history of supportive and mutual aid since the inception of our country as a whole as well as a history of discontent. After WWI and the fall of the ottoman empire, we fought in the league of nations to keep these areas independent and to create their own sovereignty. You've heard the story of Lawrence of Arabia, in which we cooped tribal and territorial leaders to help the allies in WWI under the promise of the creation of their sovereign and independent state.
So I guess I suggest that we are more or less making lemonade from a lot of lemons thrown our way with the middle east. I'm not sure we could ever un-flaw out foreign policy in the area because we would be forgetting what got us there in the first place and leaving allies out to dry (yes, Israel included), by leaving them unprotected from mutual aid agreements or missing the commercial financial support that their countries have grew around for more then 200 years (100 or so being under the ottoman empire).
Flawed probably isn't an accurate depiction of the situation even though it sounds obvious. Overly complicated and complications built on top of complications might be better. And yes, I admit that the US has done some extremely stupid things in the past. Most of the more recent ones pertained to the USSR but a lot of it came from early animosity to Europe throwing it's powers around too. One of the biggest problems we face or have faced in the past is the vast amounts or resources we have in the Americas (north and south) and how isolating ourselves (the US) from the rest of the world would more or less invites invasion for a lot of those resources. Imagine if the Incas or other indigenous cultures of south America were able to call up a neighboring civilization to come to their aid when the Spanish started enslaving them to steal the gold. Columbus and those who followed would never have been able to send the boats over fast enough with enough troops to conquer south America. This is why we need to not isolate ourselves and why we need to not only offer but expect help in return regardless of our ever needing it. When an ally goes down, we then know that we need to do something to help them while protecting ourselves. This may not be as much of an issue as it was 100 or 200 years ago, but it's something that has shaped our existence today and will effect it tomorrow too.
You obviously don't know what the waits are about then.
It isn't for emergency care or to just be seen. It's about once your seen and the doctor says you need to see X specialist or your need Y procedure. Even an MRI in Canada can take over 4 months at times to get if it wasn't done on an emergency basis. Getting to that point seems to be simple in both systems. What comes after that is so bad on government health systems that it has sparked a medical tourism industry where 10% or better of the people covered in some/most of these government health systems attempt to find user pays medical coverage in other countries.
I can't find my link now, but the specific one I'm looking for (and your google fingers will work just as well) stated the above and referenced Germany who was spending massive amounts of money attempting to get their quality of care to be on par with the US's to attract a portion of Europe's medical tourism the currently goes to India and Japan. It stated that Canada's people go to the US and Mexico by and large and even referenced the "Wait Insurance" being sold in Canada to it's people (with a massive outcry of the Canadian governments) where private citizens are paying for health insurance to guarantee medical access within a reasonable amount of time even if they have to leave their province or country to get it. In 2006 or so, the Canadian supreme court in the Chaoulli decision ruled that Quebec's health care systems laws violated the rights to life, liberty, and security of person with Seven of seven judges ruled that patients experienced physical and psychological suffering", and all ruled that the system imposed the risk of death and irreparable harm to patients waiting for care. Look at statement number eight in this PDF for a little more on that. You should be able to find better sources from that. And yes, that was an industry piece.
Are there waits in the US too? Sure there is when you can't pay or skimped out and purchased a cheap insurance policy. But in the US, the government doesn't tell you not to make provisions on your own then throw you down a hole hoping to save the costs by your eventual death instead of providing the care needed to save your life or stabilize your quality of life so you can get back to normal. In the US, that's all up to you to "choose" to do, not some bureaucrats sitting 2000 miles away claiming your taken care of when your not. Of you belay the new car, sit back from the toys, you can most likely afford your own health care, but you get to choose how good or bad your coverage is and you get to have some say in how much or little you can pay verses spending the funding on a new big Screen TV so you can see the zits on Brittany's face when she checks in/out of rehab again.
It's actually really hard to get people inside these organizations. Durring the Clinton years, and most likely the Bush Sr years, they dropped a lot of funding for intelligence gathering because of the fall of the USSR.
The middle east has had issues going back to the mid 1940's or so making it difficult to get real people to give accurate and real information. But Starting in the 1960 with operation Ajax coming back on us, it's been extremely difficult getting entrenched in these groups because of both Iran and our support for Israel. Granted, we supported the Mujaheddin back in the 80's but they aren't the ones who became terrorists and until the Taliban formed and took control (from the Mujaheddin which turned into the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan), the Mujaheddin was fighting much of the same terrorists situations (which is why the Taliban came around and was successful).
Basically, to make a long story short, about every decade since the 40's presented an issue in the middle east that we didn't fair well in and also made the west a "suspect" to about all but exiled citizens we gladly helped escape. Israel, Iran, the first gulf war, siding with the Mujaheddin put us at extreme odds with the type of people who would later attack us. To make things even more difficult, the type of people we need intelligence from aren't all that easy to pretend to be so we have to basically trade death for life to get a lot of the informers to turn. These organizations are worse then governments where you can find fringe people happy to create power for themselves or defeat what they consider an unjust rule, but we are talking about a cult ideology that is so extreme it makes escaping membership of an intercity gang seem like walking out the door.
How do you unconvince an irrational person and get him to act not only rational but on your behalf in which most of their irrationality presents you as the common enemy that bonds people who would likely otherwise kill each other. It's just something that is extremely difficult and the Shiny Toys had filled the gaps.
The US has the same laws, just not to the same extent. It's for blank "music" media that can be recorded on in the US.
Ever go to the store and see data CDs sitting next to music CDs and find the blank Music CDs are more expensive? The tax is why. It also fund to find a sales rep and ask them what the difference between the two are besides costs. Only once have I has someone say the real reason, Best Buy holds my personal favorite response for saying "the aluminum oxide inside the plastic is a better grade on the music CDs so the sound will be clearer". I had a circuit City employee tell me once that the labels cost more to print on the Music CDs.
But those are not the reforms the RIAA is talking about. They want Canada and other countries to adopt anti-circumvention laws similar to the DMCA, which would make it illegal to defeat DRM for legitimate purposes like those I listed above, and are busy spreading the usual misinformation in order to achieve their goal.
It's not just RIAA that wants other countries to adopt DMCA style laws. The DMCA in the US was pretty much constructed completely out of the WTC and the WPPT (with the exception of penalties). Both are WIPO treaties and you can find out more about them there.
It's actually quite interesting. RIAA and the MPAA seem to be the ones taking all the attention but international treaties were negotiated a while back and that would seem to be the real driving forces behind the DMCA style laws in other countries that keep getting shot down.
The whole point of Net Neutrality is that an ISP can not treat packets differently based on their type or destination unless it is in excess of what the consumer is paying for.
There, Fixed that for you.
The problem is generally with what the consumer pays for. if they get extra, all is still fine. If another service is degraded or restricted in order to do that, then there is a problem. As long as the customer gets what they paid for, then anything extra is fine.
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He can agree all he wants. The problem isn't his opinion or agreement as much as it is his plagiarism and pretending that it's his own words. People don't do that without an attempt of deception which is what I was pointing out. If he would have said something about agreeing with X or he believe like X then made the statement, there deception wouldn't have been there. So tell me, if you go to 3 different car lots looking for a used car and all the salesmen tell you the cars were owned by little old ladies from Pasadena who only drove them on Sunday, would you start to think something was up or be the sucker who didn't notice the problem? Do you get sold a bad bill of good often?
I'm sorry if you can't get that concept. I don't have to prove anything to be suspect of something. The next time someone calls you up and the caller ID says it's anonymous or out of area, why don't you go ahead and apply for that credit card over the phone or help that guy at customs process your packages. I mean EVERY ANONYMOUS COWARD who parrots someone else' statement is going to be legit right.
The dense part is that you refuse to understand that these people are not advocating their taxes go up, they are advocating that your taxes go up. As I mentioned before, the others who has embraced that line, members of the current government, the person who originated the statement, all have either cheated on their taxes or taken steps to avoid paying anything more then they absolutely have to. If they think they could and should pay more, then why is Buffet receiving his income as investment profits to limit his tax liabilities instead of taking it as regular income so it would be subject to the full tax rate plus social security taxes and various employer taxes. If they think they should pay more, then half the administration should have never cheated on their taxes, Kennedy and Charlie Reingold should have reported all their taxable income too.
You don't find it just a bit suspect that about everyone who says we need to pay more in taxes in the same ways the AC did, has either legally or illegally taken specific steps to avoid just that? You don't find it just a bit suspect that those same people were made aware of what they already knew in that they could pay extra at any time and refused to do so but they claim it's their "moral duty" to pay more. It's complete fucking hogwash.
It sounds like it. Glad your back though.
None of that has been adjudicated illegal without the party in question standing on the belief they were legal and able to do what they did. Some of it is little more then speculation as to the legality as it stands anyways.
And yes, the belief of being in the right does matter even though it wasn't the case or reality as the situation plays out. This is exactly what I am talking about too. Most democrats profoundly expel how evil those violations are but when a chief law enforcement officer in the land goes into a court of law and lies through his teeth, it's not about the crime, it's about the "blowjob" the crime was concerning. Even after Judge Wright ruled that Clinton lied, assess fines and penalties to him which was later used as the basis of one of the complaints that got Clinton's law license revoked, the democrats say oh, it was nothing, just a "blow job". But when someone else like a republican thinks they are in the right (*as clinton might have actually thought) and is proven wrong by law, hell and heaven just merged and it's the Apocalypse.
The exposure of the "covert operative" was actually done by a long time democrat Richard Armatage, Scooter Libbey wasn't prosecuted for that, he was prosecuted for saying he spoke with people out of order and not remembering speaking to someone who claimed he did. But all that was after the fact of Armatage and Robert Novak kept his name secrete throughout the investigation in order to keep the investigation going at the wishes of Armatage.
I also find it interesting that you bring up the evasion of Corporate income taxes when all it does is prove my point. Why is it your complaining about someone not paying their taxes when half of Obama's cabinet and several key leading democrats have failed to pay them properly? The guy in charge of the US treasury right now couldn't even get his taxes correct and knew there was a problem but figured it would go away if he waited long enough.
But this is all sort of pointless because what I was trying to get across was that the republicans seem to want to enforce the laws on the books and the democrats want to use the hardships created when someone breaks the laws as a vehicle to push more laws onto the public in knee jerk reactions.
You short list was flawed but again you missing the big picture. No of them looked at their actions and said this is against the law. Even the NSA wiretaps were initially thought to of been within the law. Then it was believed that because of other duties and obligations of the office, the law couldn't apply in that particular case. Of course that's not uncommon to happen and is still within the rule of law because an unconstitutional law or an unconstitutionally applied law is not within the rule of law.
I can understand that you can't see reality with your head in the sand. All that I ask is that now once it out, you actually pay attention.
I didn't try to pin it on Obama. However, I'm sort of concerned that you went directly to Obama when I said more government control was change that was going to happen anyways.
I wouldn't agree that it is childish. It's the way our society was created and is the halmark of freedom and liberty. You see, we operate under the assumption of we can until something with authority says we can't. Now morals, like this impressed by religions, fraternity groups (eagles, elks, boy scouts) civil societies (bar associations, trade groups/unions) and so on are all relative instead of absolute now.
It used to be a system of absolute morality in which it was a given of what was expected and how we treated each other as well as expected to be treated. but in out enlighten society, it's all about relative morality now. This took us from a solid how will my actions effect others to a how will my actions effect me. With that shift has come a shift the stuff that you seem to think makes us childish now.
I would try education before legislation too but without a shift back to absolute morality to some degree, it will be more or less an exercise in futility.
That's probably the worst part of the democrats. They vilify the republicans for wanting to enforce the rule of law unless it's something they can use to their own political advantage yet they always ignore existing laws and attempt to put massively draconian new laws in place because of the lack of enforcement of previous laws as some knee jerk reaction just to appear to be doing something.
There's change you can believe in. Well, believe as in it is going to happen anyways.
It makes complete sense. You have someone who is parroting something someone else said in an effort to spread propaganda and gain support for something that they felt otherwise wouldn't have it. It would be different if the AC used his own words, but he didn't, he use the words of someone else changed slightly. The messenger was a tool attempting to turn people like you. Pointing that out is completely valid.
You don't need to believe everything I say, but you at least should have the knowledge about what was said. What I mean by that is, if I say X and X is a strawman or a bastardization of something else in an attempt to fool you, then you knowledge of that helps you decide whether or not my statement can persuade you to my line of thinking. It doesn't matter who tells you what's up, what's important is that you know of it.
It means that everyone else who has parroted those same words or some close incarnation to them has been a hypocrite in practice. Most of them have been so hypocritical that they have been caught cheating on their taxes. So to say "I can pay more and think I should pay more" but when presented with the opportunity, you you do the exact opposite, shows that your not sincere about your position or the statement in question. I'm sorry that you can't see that. I'm also sorry that you couldn't see my sarcasm was being hypocritical in the example of using more fossil fuels then anyone else while telling everyone else they need to cut back. It's the Do as I say, not as I do syndrome which is completely wrong.
Lol.. Are you that out of touch with reality? I mean this is common knowledge but if you really do need a picture drawn or someone else to do the google finger for you, I guess I can. Warren Buffets financial structure is so public knowledge that investment strategies of just doing what he does has been created and Buffet has actually allowed access to his transactions to let this happen. He actually publicly admitted to this in his famous statement "I pay less taxes them my secretary" where he went on to show how he protects or shelters income from taxes "legally" and eventually to the same statement the AC posted.
Of course the article I mentioned seems to use some faulty math because a reduction in one area doesn't mean an increase in another. But hey, when you point exists in a false dichotomy I guess everything is fair game.
Lol.. Those "some people" are the people I was talking about who have made that same statement. Fuck dude, you act as if I'm saying some people don't like apples so no one likes apples. No, that's not even close to what is being said. I said that the AC parroted X which was said by several Y people and those Y people did Z instead of X with Z being the exact opposite of X. Warren Buffet when asked why he didn't just donate money to
While that is technically true, it isn't necessarily true.
In the US, the treaties made under the authority of the constitution are part of the supreme law of the land. Article III of the constitution also gives US courts constitutional authority over any treaty regardless of arbitration clauses providing someone can show cause to bring a suit under the treaty. Now it should be noted that you can't create a treaty that is unconstitutional (even though some people want to claim you can) because congress and the president is bound to the authority and limits of the US constitution. All laws, treaties, government actions are required to be made in pursuant to the constitution not only because it says so, but because it's the defining authority allowing them to be made. Otherwise it would be no different then you or I declaring a law or treaty in place, we could do that but it would have no authority.
Anyways, at least in the US, the US supreme court retains judicial powers over all treaties by right of constitutional provisions. Getting them to use that power may end up an exercise in futility but they do have the power of jurisprudence over it by the same authority that allows the US to make treaties in the first place. It would take a constitutional amendment to remove that power.
As a side note, did you know that there can actually be "unconstitutional" constitutional amendments? Interestingly enough, the amendment process is limited from two provision happening, the first being an amendment effecting first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article before 1808 and the second which is still in force, being that no state can be deprived of equal amounts of senators in the senate without it's consent. Don't know why I added that other then I thought it was interesting when it popped into my head after looking at article III again to verify my statement.
Well, actually it will have came into contact with Canadian customs. All shipments in Canada and the US need a bill of lading and all shipments leaving the country need a copy of that BoL files or declared with an export agent representing customs. You are correct in that an agent doesn't actually look into the shipping container or truck but they do look at the BoL before it leaves the country.
Now what's going to be a problem is whether or not the BoL accurately reflects the contents of the shipping containers or truck in which it is being hauled in. If it does, then it will be obvious to find on either side of the border. If it doesn't then two things have transpired that makes it Canada's problem. First, they are allowing the shipment of undeclared and/or improperly classified materials into the US which is a violation of not only the NAFTA treaty but GATT provisions and some that were replace by the WTO as well as well as various Canadian and US laws. You also have some issues with the berne convention and the copyright protections in the Geneva convention which Canada signed but didn't implement in 1971, the Rome Convention in which Canada has in force since 1998, the WTC and WPPT which Canada signed but didn't implement in 1997 when it comes to copyrights.
Keep in mind, I separated the copyrights in particular and stated which they were bound by (in force) in order to show why pressure is being placed to implement laws to these effect. The DMCA was taken almost word for word from the WTC and WPPT articles minus the penalties and a few quirks in implementation. Those two treaties is also the reason why not only are other countries attempting to implement those laws, but why the US has been able to enforce it's DMCA laws in Australia and other places. There are provisions that allow for that if the member country doesn't have a particular law covering an item in the treaty. Although that gets really complicated to enforce.
Personally, I think this outburst is more along the lines of ammunition to get rid of NAFTA and implement something more restrictive and beneficial with the US. Recently Canada has blasted the US claiming that the "buy American" campaigns operated by governments(government contracts) and unions or trade groups violate NAFTA protocol and is essentially protectionism. Expect some more crap like this then someone claiming that NAFTA was the reason for the mortgage meltdown and recession we are in and then expect the "free" in North American Free Trade Agreement to disappear.
That's an interesting concept considering that Europe is more reliant on international trade then any other area in the world. Something else that's interesting is that the quality of life for many china citizens has enormously increased ever since the US and EU started importing goods and investing in manufacturing there. The same can be said in India too.
Oh, I'm sorry. I get it now, you weren't actually serious about anything you said, you were just looking for mod points and mad props by blaming and bashing the US for everything. Oh well, ignore my post and continue.
Actually, it's the problem of both.
When a countries wants to participate in trade, especially when that trade is the manufacturing, importation, or selling of goods within another country, then sometimes there are rules and restrictions to that trade. These rules and restrictions are generally outlines in multinational or unilateral treaties that both countries are participants to. Anyways, the berne convention in which Canada is party to states that each member country has an obligation to honor the copyright of authors in other countries as well as make reasonable legislation (while providing for fair use) to ensure that happens.
NAFTA on the other hand, also has provisions involved in which each country is bound to deter the importation of anything banned or restricted by law into one of the member countries. This places more of an obligation on Canada itself for the inspection and removal of Pirated copies of copyright protected materials. This also gets sort of complicated because there are quite a few limitations to this rule. An example of this might be the transportation through the US of something illegal in the US but legal in Mexico or perhaps even illegal in Mexico but legal to ship out of Mexico.
I'm suspecting that the US is attempting to make claims that would present a reason for bailing on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and to negotiate something more favorable to the US. This was suggested by both primary candidates of the party who took power during the last election cycle. I can imagine that they are priming the situation to use the down economy to threaten Canada with bans on imports and passage through America to Mexico per NAFTA which would harm their economy- under the guise of things like this in order to get rid of the "free" in the trade and implement something that the US benefits from more. I would expect to start seeing more things like this.
Anyways, its not really a "not my problem" situation for Canada. How much of their problem it might actually be could probably be debated but they need to at least appear as if they are doing something even if not successful in order to satisfy some trade treaties.
Copyright laws in the US as of the mid 1800's have all been a result of international treaties. We have changed no copyright laws after the mid 1800's without signing onto a treaty first.
Now don't get me wrong, the same powerful corporations could be behind those international treaties but the changes that most people bitch about today stem from compliance with the Berne Convention, the Uragay round table agreements, the WTC and WPPT. While Cannada isn't a signitory to the WTC or WPPT WIPO treaties, Europe and many other countries are which is why you see a lot of other countries attempting to implement DMCA style laws only to be repeatedly shot down by their populous. The DMCA was more or less taken directly from the WTC and WPPT treaties minus the penalties.
Anyways, it's way more complex then your overly simple observation would allow and if you ever expect anything to be done about them, you will have to understand the fundamental behind the motivation more then claiming "X is evil" so that efforts can be directed into productive areas capable of providing satisfactory results. The reason you have the belief that the powerful corporations created the laws and that there is nothing that can be done is because the wrong villain has been blamed.
It means exactly what I think it means. The statement was a manipulated fallacy created for the sole purpose to push an agenda or ideal that otherwise would have been non-existent to the poster.
The reason they were brought up was to show the intent of the messenger. And yes, to put it too your analogy with the murderers, it would mean suspect the messenger so if John Wayne Gacy did say murder was wrong, we could correctly suspect him of being a murderer.
Yea, and me driving my SUV around from airport to airport and jetting around the country or world while I leave all the light on at my mansion so it draws more electricity then all my neighbors combined to say "you have to curb your carbon emissions to save the world" is not just a bit hypocritical.
The fucks don't practice what they preach and you don't find that Odd or disingenuous? The poster said he could pay more as the reason why others like him should pay more. If he isn't going to lead by example then it's pointless to take him seriously. Perhaps you can be fooled by smooth talk, but I will always look a gift horse in the mouth just to make sure there aren't any Trojans hiding.
lol.. So you took a generalization and think it will disprove everything else. Well, here is the proof, look at Warren Buffet who originated the statement the AC bastardized. He doesn't pay anything extra plus he structures his income to eliminate a good portion of his tax obligation. Oh, there is Ted Kennedy and a host of politicians who believe the same. I also find it interesting that the politicians in the party claiming to be helping the poor the most seem to have the least charitable contributions. Well, on the national and presidential levels anyways.
Do you think I'm an idiot because you want to act like one? We aren't talking about taking the child tax credit here. We are talking about creating trusts and holding companies to funnel money through in order to manipulate tax obligat
I'm not missing anything and poor people are not paying proportionally more taxes. In fact, most of the poor and people just above poor receive more tax money back then they paid in to the system in the first place. At least as far as federal income tax is concerned.
As for the choice, the problem is that the people wanting to take the choice away are the ones who on their own merit refuse to pay extra. It's about liberty not morality. This country was founded on the principles of liberty not some fucked up version of morality that allows the selfish to dictate the expenses of others while they themselves attempt to avoid those costs. It seems that you missed the point.
Here is the problem with your contrived statement. And yes, It's almost identical to one made by Warren Buffet a few years back and parroted by a couple of people who are now known to be tax cheats (as if raising the taxes would effect someone cheating and not paying).
Anyways, here is the problem. You keep using the word I. In everything you say, it's all about you. So why are you trying to impose this idea of yours into others? If you don't pay enough taxes and that's your honest believe (Mr. Kennedy who failed to report stock transactions that he actually reported to the senate ethics comity and Reinold who failed to report rental income for more then 10 years and both have parroted the same statement to some extent) there is a process where you can donate more then what your allowed. In fact, everyone who claimed they can or should pay more taxes fail to pay more then they have to and most of them have structured their income to the point that most of their tax obligation is negated or they just cheat and don't report the income.
So why is that, you and many others want to tag onto this line about needing to pay more but when the ability is and always has been there, you fail to do so. And when you and others do your taxes, why is it that you always attempt to take as many deductions as possible? Your entire statement was about how you feel, and how you do whatever but it's nothing more then lip service. You posted AC so no one who knows you will chime in with the truth of you making 35k a year with a wife and 2 kids and don't even pay a 10% effective tax rate.
First, they don't pay Zero taxes. They are missing paying taxes on profits made in foreign countries. All their US born profits are taxed like normal.
The next item of importance is that they employ many people who pay taxes plus you have property taxes, permits for operations, and "other" taxes on state and local levels that are raised because of their presence here.
Finally, It's already against the law to hide revenue by moving it off shore for the purpose of avoiding tax liabilities. What this means is that all US generated monies will be taxed before it's allowed to leave the country. The major difference is going to be all the jobs lost. Suppose a company makes a 10 million a year profit in their US division and in order to do that, they pay salaries to 1000 people totaling plus bonuses, health care and so on. Lets assume those 1000 people earn an average salary of $80,000 a year. That's roughly $80,000,000 (80 mill) a year in total salaries that will likely have an effective tax at around 15-20% on the federal income tax alone (not including SS or employers portions of employment taxes). But those 1000 people will also be paying property taxes, purchasing things that keep other businesses open, and so on and so on.
So on the surface, you would be losing the federal income tax on the 10 million US profits plus the income taxes on the 80 mill total for employee salaries, then figure the SS taxes, gas taxes for transportation, local taxes and fees and so on. Plus, those 1000 people would now be unemployed or displace other workers to create almost the same scenario that would end up costing the government money for support services. It won't be a pretty picture and it looks better as it is..
Apples and Oranges. That's not neccesarily true when all the realities are taken into consideration. In the US, elective cosmetic surgery is added to the per capital spending where in comparison, other countries aren't unless it's specifically covered by the national health plan. Add to that the lower quality of treatments and the refusal of treatment like the elderly get in England and Europe, and you will see the spending is very similar.
If that your choice, then it is _YOUR_CHOICE. It isn't the government's choice or your neighbors choice and the only time the choices over your own health should be taken from you is when an emergency exists and you aren't able to communicate or comprehend those choices. And no, Not all insurance is like that, not even remotely all. However, I do see your need to vilify insurance companies blindly in order to support your position.
And the difference here is that you can drop that insurance agent and get another at will or any time. Liberty is about you having the power to control your own destiny and you deciding your own situation. The very thought of forcing me to pay for government health and taking my choices away or even my option to make those choices goes against the very grain this country was founded on. You can pick and chose which insurance agent you want or what policies you want to purchase. You can't do that with a politician in charge looking for contributions and you cannot make changes to your coverage without convincing millions of other people to do the same. Why you seem to think that giving up your freedom and choices is a good thing, I will never know. But I think I can comfortably assume your leaning towards the idea of someone else paying for your medical coverage so you can buy another big screen TV or something. Well, think about it, you will be taxed more and not be able to buy new shiny things and you will not have the ability to decide what type of coverage you want/need nor will you be able to skimp on certain things to afford others.
Actually, private health insurance is affordable to the vast majority of people. There is a small group of people who aren't already eligible or covered by government health and cannot legitimately afford health insurance. The majority of people claiming not to be able to afford it cannot do so because of life style choices.
BTW, there is no need for employers to subsidize health coverage. That's something they do to attract certain employees and to help keep them productive. If they weren't paying for the employer portion of insurance policies, they would be paying more in taxes to cover government health and more in wages to still attract those same types of people. The only drag you are seeing is a fictional one made up entirely to support a non-existent point.
Our foreign policy in the area has really been fatally flawed since the inception of our country. I'm not sure there could be anything different that could be done to change that at this point in time. I mean Thomas Jefferson (our third president) created a Standing Navy and the US Marine forces specifically to deal with the Middle east (Tripoli- then capitol of the ottoman empire) because they were sending pirate ships along the US Atlantic coast and started capturing Private citizens and selling them as slaves. Jefferson asked the ambassador to Tripoli while he was the ambassador to France where they got the right to attack our ships and kidnap our people to sell into slavery and his reply was Allah gave them the right. (of course that was no different then using a god to justify anything else done which was common for the time)
Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, and quite a few other territorial countries in the area (ottoman empire still) was/were major trade ports for the US and a natural extension of the Asian trade routes coming from China and India to the US. The Tea that we (our founding fathers) dumped into the Boston Harbor traveled by caravan to be loaded on a British flagged ship at the port of Kuwait. We have a history of supportive and mutual aid since the inception of our country as a whole as well as a history of discontent. After WWI and the fall of the ottoman empire, we fought in the league of nations to keep these areas independent and to create their own sovereignty. You've heard the story of Lawrence of Arabia, in which we cooped tribal and territorial leaders to help the allies in WWI under the promise of the creation of their sovereign and independent state.
So I guess I suggest that we are more or less making lemonade from a lot of lemons thrown our way with the middle east. I'm not sure we could ever un-flaw out foreign policy in the area because we would be forgetting what got us there in the first place and leaving allies out to dry (yes, Israel included), by leaving them unprotected from mutual aid agreements or missing the commercial financial support that their countries have grew around for more then 200 years (100 or so being under the ottoman empire).
Flawed probably isn't an accurate depiction of the situation even though it sounds obvious. Overly complicated and complications built on top of complications might be better. And yes, I admit that the US has done some extremely stupid things in the past. Most of the more recent ones pertained to the USSR but a lot of it came from early animosity to Europe throwing it's powers around too. One of the biggest problems we face or have faced in the past is the vast amounts or resources we have in the Americas (north and south) and how isolating ourselves (the US) from the rest of the world would more or less invites invasion for a lot of those resources. Imagine if the Incas or other indigenous cultures of south America were able to call up a neighboring civilization to come to their aid when the Spanish started enslaving them to steal the gold. Columbus and those who followed would never have been able to send the boats over fast enough with enough troops to conquer south America. This is why we need to not isolate ourselves and why we need to not only offer but expect help in return regardless of our ever needing it. When an ally goes down, we then know that we need to do something to help them while protecting ourselves. This may not be as much of an issue as it was 100 or 200 years ago, but it's something that has shaped our existence today and will effect it tomorrow too.
You obviously don't know what the waits are about then.
It isn't for emergency care or to just be seen. It's about once your seen and the doctor says you need to see X specialist or your need Y procedure. Even an MRI in Canada can take over 4 months at times to get if it wasn't done on an emergency basis. Getting to that point seems to be simple in both systems. What comes after that is so bad on government health systems that it has sparked a medical tourism industry where 10% or better of the people covered in some/most of these government health systems attempt to find user pays medical coverage in other countries.
I can't find my link now, but the specific one I'm looking for (and your google fingers will work just as well) stated the above and referenced Germany who was spending massive amounts of money attempting to get their quality of care to be on par with the US's to attract a portion of Europe's medical tourism the currently goes to India and Japan. It stated that Canada's people go to the US and Mexico by and large and even referenced the "Wait Insurance" being sold in Canada to it's people (with a massive outcry of the Canadian governments) where private citizens are paying for health insurance to guarantee medical access within a reasonable amount of time even if they have to leave their province or country to get it. In 2006 or so, the Canadian supreme court in the Chaoulli decision ruled that Quebec's health care systems laws violated the rights to life, liberty, and security of person with Seven of seven judges ruled that patients experienced physical and psychological suffering", and all ruled that the system imposed the risk of death and irreparable harm to patients waiting for care. Look at statement number eight in this PDF for a little more on that. You should be able to find better sources from that. And yes, that was an industry piece.
Are there waits in the US too? Sure there is when you can't pay or skimped out and purchased a cheap insurance policy. But in the US, the government doesn't tell you not to make provisions on your own then throw you down a hole hoping to save the costs by your eventual death instead of providing the care needed to save your life or stabilize your quality of life so you can get back to normal. In the US, that's all up to you to "choose" to do, not some bureaucrats sitting 2000 miles away claiming your taken care of when your not. Of you belay the new car, sit back from the toys, you can most likely afford your own health care, but you get to choose how good or bad your coverage is and you get to have some say in how much or little you can pay verses spending the funding on a new big Screen TV so you can see the zits on Brittany's face when she checks in/out of rehab again.
It's actually really hard to get people inside these organizations. Durring the Clinton years, and most likely the Bush Sr years, they dropped a lot of funding for intelligence gathering because of the fall of the USSR.
The middle east has had issues going back to the mid 1940's or so making it difficult to get real people to give accurate and real information. But Starting in the 1960 with operation Ajax coming back on us, it's been extremely difficult getting entrenched in these groups because of both Iran and our support for Israel. Granted, we supported the Mujaheddin back in the 80's but they aren't the ones who became terrorists and until the Taliban formed and took control (from the Mujaheddin which turned into the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan), the Mujaheddin was fighting much of the same terrorists situations (which is why the Taliban came around and was successful).
Basically, to make a long story short, about every decade since the 40's presented an issue in the middle east that we didn't fair well in and also made the west a "suspect" to about all but exiled citizens we gladly helped escape. Israel, Iran, the first gulf war, siding with the Mujaheddin put us at extreme odds with the type of people who would later attack us. To make things even more difficult, the type of people we need intelligence from aren't all that easy to pretend to be so we have to basically trade death for life to get a lot of the informers to turn. These organizations are worse then governments where you can find fringe people happy to create power for themselves or defeat what they consider an unjust rule, but we are talking about a cult ideology that is so extreme it makes escaping membership of an intercity gang seem like walking out the door.
How do you unconvince an irrational person and get him to act not only rational but on your behalf in which most of their irrationality presents you as the common enemy that bonds people who would likely otherwise kill each other. It's just something that is extremely difficult and the Shiny Toys had filled the gaps.
The US has the same laws, just not to the same extent. It's for blank "music" media that can be recorded on in the US.
Ever go to the store and see data CDs sitting next to music CDs and find the blank Music CDs are more expensive? The tax is why. It also fund to find a sales rep and ask them what the difference between the two are besides costs. Only once have I has someone say the real reason, Best Buy holds my personal favorite response for saying "the aluminum oxide inside the plastic is a better grade on the music CDs so the sound will be clearer". I had a circuit City employee tell me once that the labels cost more to print on the Music CDs.
It's not just RIAA that wants other countries to adopt DMCA style laws. The DMCA in the US was pretty much constructed completely out of the WTC and the WPPT (with the exception of penalties). Both are WIPO treaties and you can find out more about them there.
It's actually quite interesting. RIAA and the MPAA seem to be the ones taking all the attention but international treaties were negotiated a while back and that would seem to be the real driving forces behind the DMCA style laws in other countries that keep getting shot down.
Are you sure it was Sam Clemens or the look alike Mark Twain? Yes, identity theft is a problem too. Seems like everyone is ripping everyone off.
Isn't the government supposed to be accountable to the people? Then why on earth is it a bad thing when they listen to them and not publish something?
There, Fixed that for you.
The problem is generally with what the consumer pays for. if they get extra, all is still fine. If another service is degraded or restricted in order to do that, then there is a problem. As long as the customer gets what they paid for, then anything extra is fine.